


Diluere

by shiveringshadows



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Freeform, Gen, Phantomhive manor, innocent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-11 23:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7911115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiveringshadows/pseuds/shiveringshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite the nightly scrubbing Sebastian makes sure to give him, Ciel does not find that he ever feels much cleaner after he's been dried and dressed for bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diluere

raw juice on him.

Stamens on him

and as Kafka said in the end

my swimming was of no use to me you know I cannot swim after all.

\- Anne Carson, _The Beauty of the Husband_

 

 

 

A few months after his homecoming, his new butler at his side, Ciel realized, somewhat reluctantly, that Sebastian had come a long way since the first night they spent together in Phantomhive Manor. And not only in his cooking (the slop he prepared that first evening wasn’t even fit for a dog, is how he would answer if he were asked): Sebastian had become much more competent at giving baths.

Of course it has stayed that way. Unlike the initial disaster, the water is never too hot anymore; the butler no longer tries to scour his skin with the cloth, as though he were trying to wash _under_ it; and Ciel daily emerges from the tub perfectly clean, not half-clean – there’s no need to abandon it partway through as he did that first time because it was too unbearable to sit and let Sebastian rub his shoulders raw. Sebastian is gentler now, and thorough: one would be hard-pressed to find even the most microscopic spec of dirt beneath the young master’s well-trimmed fingernails.

But despite the nightly scrubbing Sebastian makes sure to give him, behind his ears, under his nails, between his dainty fingers and toes -- Ciel does not find that he ever feels much cleaner once he’s been dried and dressed for bed. Oh, of course he’s comfortable enough, no longer grimy from the day, to huddle under the comforter and eventually drift into what he hopes will be a dreamless sleep. But at the beginning he wondered bleakly if he would feel filthy for the rest of his life.

Three years have wandered in and faded out without much notice since that first night back at Phantomhive, and he’s grown, and grown used to the sensation of having been soiled. Anymore he can’t say he notices it, much. His body no longer immediately recalls every place they’d touched him every time he’s alone, the pervasive burn of his wrists, his ankles, his jaw. His nightmares are infrequent. But Ciel feels it when they return to the manor, another assignment from Her Royal Highness completed; feels it when Elizabeth grabs him suddenly and – surprisingly gentle, sincere, innocent – holds him close and won’t let him escape until a few seconds have passed. He’s always hesitant to return the gesture, as though he might ruin her inadvertently, irreparably: he doesn’t want to leave fingerprints or stains on her.

 

 

Infrequent nightmares are all well and good but Ciel can’t say with any modicum of truth that there is never a time, anymore, when he doesn’t wake up slick with sweat and shaking. Dirty and wanting a bath.

Sebastian obliges him on the rare occasions when he allows himself to be vulnerable and asks for one, even if it’s too early in the morning or too late at night for Ciel to be up, because what kind of butler would I be if I let my young master go without a bath?

“Not a very good one, I suppose,” Ciel said once, before one of these late-night baths. Two o’clock in the morning. Sebastian didn’t react. His face was set in one of those dazzling but so obviously false smiles, and he peeled the sweat-damp nightshirt off the boy and set to washing the stickiness and salt away.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for... Anything since I was a middle school student, 10,000 years ago. Hopefully it doesn't sound like I tried too hard, lol.
> 
> By the way, "diluere" is a Latin verb meaning "to wash away."


End file.
